Well, this has been a very, very long time in the making. Google has finally unveiled its big Dropbox competitor: Google Drive. You start with 5GB for free, and you can go all the way to 1TB for $50 per month. This is a big deal for many (if you were to use rumouring as a gauge), but all I can think of is this: why on earth would you entrust your files to a company - any company - whose sole interest is extracting money from you, and who, to boot, is subject to crazy American laws?

Security of my private data is the main reason I don't use any of these services.

Interesting how the terms of service of Google Drive and Dropbox differ, still expressing many similarities. One may say that Dropbox's requirements to an agreement look "less strict", but when you read between the lines, it's scary after all.

Yes, I know: Whenever something is "for free", it means someone else will pay for it. Common methods are advertising and collaborations (e. g. selling data in some ways). And it's worth keeping in mind that it is possible that a "for free" offer turns into some "for fee" concept; this maybe can be considered a kind of "vendor lock-in".

Google Drive:

When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content.

Dropbox:

We may need your permission to do things you ask us to do with your stuff, for example, hosting your files, or sharing them at your direction. This includes product features visible to you, for example, image thumbnails or document previews. It also includes design choices we make to technically administer our Services, for example, how we redundantly backup data to keep it safe. You give us the permissions we need to do those things solely to provide the Services. This permission also extends to trusted third parties we work with to provide the Services, for example Amazon, which provides our storage space (again, only to provide the Services).

I wonder how this relates to possible corporate use of those services...